Tag Archives: race

W.C. Handy, Father of Blues

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The Chicago Defender, established in 1905 by Robert Abbot, is celebrated as one of the most influential Black newspapers.1 An article written by Diana Briggs and published in the Defender on August 16, 1941 features Wyatt Christopher, or W.C. Handy. Handy played a significant role in the popularization of the blues in the early 20th century.2 In the concise article, Briggs hails him as the “Father of the Blues,” and tells of his visit to the Good Shepherd Community Center.3

W.C. Handy at the Good Shepherd Community Center7

 

The article tells of Handy’s relationship with the blues and opinions on other related genres, such as Swing.4 Briggs openly presents Handy’s strong, uncompromising stance on the Swing style. Handy categorizes Swing as a “prostituted melody of the blues,” used for the purposes of economic piracy on the behalf of whites who profit off of it.5 Handy describes Swing in an extremely decisive manner, calling it an aborted form of blues.6

 

When considering Handy’s career as a musician, composer, and bandleader, his almost graphic portrayal of swing seems entirely appropriate. Handy’s take on Swing relates to the greater, “message for his race” that Briggs notes throughout the article.8 The information surrounding Handy’s protective attitude towards blues in this article complements his career, which he spent, “making the blues a consciously composed art,” and bringing Black music into the mainstream of public culture.9 As a pioneering artist of the genre who believed that blues, “shall help [the] Negro in the fight for equal rights,” W.C. Handy’s unwavering take on both the importance of blues and the problems of Swing become unquestionable.10

 

 

1 Pride, Karen E. “Chicago Defender Celebrates 100 Years in Business.” Chicago Defender, May 5, 2005. https://web.archive.org/web/20051201092230/http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/local.cfm?ArticleID=687. 

2 Evans, Dylan. “Handy, W(illiam) C(hristopher).” Grove Music Online, January 20, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.12322. 

3 Briggs, Diana. “Chicago Hails W. C. Handy, Father of the Blues: Father of Blues Greets Chicago with Message for Race and Music FATHER OF THE BLUES.” The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), Aug 16, 1941. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/chicago-hails-w-c-handy-father-blues/docview/492581628/se-2. 

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Robertson, David. W. C. Handy : The Life and Times of the Man Who Made the Blues. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2011. Accessed November 6, 2023. ProQuest Ebook Central.

10 Ibid.

Bitches Brew

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Miles Davis is remembered today as one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz in the 20th century. Starting his career with a more conventional cool jazz sound, Davis pushed conventions by experimenting with his playing, compositions, and album instrumentation. I consider the pinnacle of his experimentation to be his 1970 album, Bitches Brew. This album is currently available to be checked out at the St. Olaf Music Library (you need to listen to this if you haven’t already). Unknown to a “Jazz” album at the time, Bitches Brew lacks typical jazz standards, song structures, and melodies in the conventional sense. Instead, Davis gives us a dense and chaotic musical landscapes. The music often sits on 1 chord for minutes, with the musicians improvising wildly over it. Also notable is its bizarre instrumentation of 2 drummers, 2 keyboardists, 2 bass players, 2 percussionists, and a distorted electric guitar. Davis fully embraces this new electric sound, which gives this album a bit of a psychedelic feel.

To me, Bitches Brew is Davis declaring war on all preconceived notions of what “jazz” ought to be. To me, this album is a revolution. I think much of Davis’ rejection of the status quo throughout his career stems from his infamous personality. He had a reputation for his bad temper, a large ego, and general rudeness. To get an idea of what he was like off the stage, I found an interview with Playboy Magazine from 1962. In this interview, Davis talks about his views on other musicians, critics, the creative process, and concerts. Race is a dominating theme throughout the conversation. Given his historical significance and the complex history of race within jazz, I find his comments to be especially impactful.

On prejudices he’s experienced

PLAYBOY: Did you grow up with any white boys?

DAVIS : I didn’t grow up with any, not as friends, to speak of. But I went to school with some. In high school, I was the best in the music class on the trumpet. I knew it and all the rest knew it — but all the contest first prizes went to the boys with blue eyes. It made me so mad I made up my mind to outdo anybody white on my horn. If I hadn’t met that prejudice, I probably wouldn’t have had as much drive in my work. I have thought about that a lot. I have thought that prejudice and curiosity have been responsible for what I have done in music.

On white jazz musicians

PLAYBOY: In your field, music, don’t some Negro jazzmen discriminate against white musicians?

DAVIS : Crow Jim is what they call that. Yeah. It’s a lot of the Negro musicians mad because most of the best-paying jobs go to the white musicians playing what the Negroes created. But I don’t go for this, because I think prejudice one way is just as bad as the other way. I wouldn’t have no other arranger but Gil Evans — we couldn’t be much closer if he was my brother. And I remember one time when I hired Lee Konitz, some colored cats bitched a lot about me hiring an ofay in my band when Negroes didn’t have work. I said if a cat could play like Lee, I would hire him, I didn’t give a damn if he was green and had red breath.

Interviews like these are a fantastic way to get a sense of an artist’s personality. I can see why some might have considered him to be rude or short tempered, but to me, I see an artist with very little care for anything besides his work. Davis was not interested in the superficiality of the entertainment industry. He was a man who simply lived his life and refused to conform. To me, his defiance is admirable.

Refrences

Erenkrantz, Justin. “Miles Davis. A Candid Conversation With the Jazz World’s Premier Iconoclast” Accessed October 30th 2017. http://www.erenkrantz.com/Music/MilesDavisInterview.shtml

Ruhlmann, William. “Miles Davis.” Allmusic. Accessed October 30th 2017. https://www.allmusic.com/artist/miles-davis-mn0000423829/biography

Social Implications of Rap Music

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After thorough investigation of Frederic Remington’s life and travels, I found no evidence of him traveling to China or studying Chinese people… So I will do my best to interpret the Chinese Figure Study that Remington drew in the late 1800s, in relation to rap music of the 1990s. The Chinese Figure Study (see below) is and ink on paper drawing of three figures, presumably Chinese men. The most striking element of the drawing is the differences in each three men. From left to right they represent a different Chinese man: the far left, a Chinese man in traditional garb, perhaps more wealthy and to the far right, a westernized Chinese cowboy who represents a lower class immigrant.

Chinese Figure Study - Frederic Remington

Chinese Figure Study – Frederic Remington

If my interpretation is correct, the above artwork can be compared to the hip hop music from the 80s and 90s we studied. Rap/Hip-hop culture emerged in the Bronx, New York among young African Americans. This new hip-hop movement was a musical outlet for expressing the voices of the low-income Americans. The lyrics of hip hop music is very indicative of this internal and external battle the youths were facing. Public Enemy’s song “Fight the Power” exemplifies the battle of white and black social hierarchy:

“While the Black bands sweatin’
And the rhythm rhymes rollin’
Got to give us what we want
Gotta give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We got to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power”

In the song, Public Enemy talks about the rights of man and that they should fight for their rights. The painting displays a sort of classifying of man by race and socio-economic value. The binding similarities of an oppressed people are illustrated in both Remington’s Chinese Figure Study and Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power.”

Porgy and Bess: Controversy and Slow Progress

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Controversy

First, a short history of Porgy and Bess.

The original “Highlights from Porgy and Bess” album, featuring cover art entirely at odds with the featured vocalists, white Met Opera stars Lawrence Tibbett and Helen Jepson.

In fall 1935, the galleries of Carnegie Hall rang for over four hours (including two intermissions) with the music of George Gershwin and the lyrics of DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin. The private concert performance was of a new project, a grand experiment combining jazz, blues, spirituals, arias, and recitatives in a work that Gershwin described as a “folk opera,” Porgy and Bess, based on the novel Porgy by Heyward. The show became problematic for many reasons: though technically an opera featuring trained opera singers, it played according to Broadway’s schedule; the composer Gershwin had never written anything of such magnitude; while the production featured an all-black cast telling an African-American story, the author/librettist Heyward was white; the entire production crew from the director down to the stagehands to the violinists in the pit was white. In fact, the “official cast album” was recorded just days after the opera’s Broadway opening. It featured not the show’s original African-American leads, Todd Duncan and Anne Brown, as the titular Porgy and Bess, but white Metropolitan Opera stars Lawrence Tibbett and Helen Jepson, who sat in on the last few rehearsals before opening night to learn the music. Producers felt the album would be more palatable to wide audiences and therefore sell better. (Sidebar: black performers were not allowed at the Met. Duncan and Brown did finally collaborate on a Porgy and Bess album in 1940/42.)

The original Catfish Row as seen at Broadway’s Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon Theatre) in 1935. Photo from the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

Controversy continued to surround the show: the performers protested the racial segregation at their Washington, D.C., venue, the National Theatre. Thanks especially to the efforts of Todd Duncan (Porgy), Porgy and Bess played to the National Theatre’s first integrated audience. Many more stories could be told.

Let’s fast-forward a decade to 1943, when Warner Brothers was hard at work on their fictionalized biopic of George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue. Like most biopics, the storyline stretched the truth, creating two fictional romances for George, and served more as an homage to Gershwin than an accurate portrayal of his life, allowing the opportunity for full performances of Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F, “I Got Rhythm,” “Swanee,” and many more Gershwin hits.

Slow Progress

One of those other hits was “Summertime.” Judging by producers’ earlier resistance to recording an African-American Bess, one might expect the producers to opt again for a white star. But they did not ask Helen Jepson to sing. They called in Anne Brown, the original Bess, to reprise her role.

But progress seems to be a slow journey. As Alyce Key relates in an article for the Los Angeles Tribune in 1943 (this third incarnation of the paper was an African-American paper started by Almena Lomax praised for its fearless reporting), Miss Brown’s appearance in Hollywood was “shrouded in . . . more secrecy” than the WWII meetings of FDR and Churchill in Tehran, Potsdam, and Yalta:

Alyce Key’s article from the Los Angeles Tribune, September 6, 1943.

Fun fact: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, $10,000 in 1943 is equal to $135,677.46 for one song. For comparison, Jennifer Lawrence got $500,000 for starring in The Hunger Games. The whole movie. $10,000 in 1943 was–and is–a lot of money for 3:40 of screen time.

As Alyce Key points out, people care. Gershwin cared enough to spend almost a decade working on Porgy and Bess. Todd Duncan cared enough to protest segregation at the National Theatre. The producers of Rhapsody in Blue cared enough to give Anne Brown a generous salary, but not enough to announce her involvement.

Progress, but slow progress. Maybe we just don’t care enough.

Hop on over to YouTube to check out Anne Brown’s reenacted performance of “Summertime”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxGMWfC7tm8.

“Key Notes by Alyce Key.” Los Angeles Tribune, Sep 6, 1943. America’s Historical Newspapers, SQN: 12A55C9DAF0E8A10.

Schwartz, Charles. Gershwin: His Life and Music. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1973.

Analysis and Anthology of Black Folk Music in the 1800s

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During the 1800s when it was booming in popularity within white America, black folk music was transcribed by white people interested in monetizing the replication of the music. Many anthologies chronicling black folk music were produced, transcribed by white people of educated, important stature in society, along with critiques and analyses on the subject. One of these anthologies is Reverend William Eleazar Barton’s Old Plantation Hymns: A collection of hitherto unpublished melodies of the slave and freedman, with historical and descriptive notes.

Within its cover, Barton gives an account of his “quest for quaint hymns” and the conversations he has with people along the way fo fulfill this quest.

barton1

Figure 1

His anthology contains descriptions and observations of the performance practice of black folk music characteristic to the overt white mentality of superiority of the time.

barton2

Figure 2

barton3

Figure 3

griffin1

Figure 4

 

 

 

 

 

The issue with white Americans transcribing black folk music is that they would often transcribe one verse of a song in standard notation and then include the next verses below. This would allow for those wanting to sing the music to do so, but often fill in all of the rhythms incorrectly or without the same feeling from verse to verse.

 

griffin2

Figure 5

Another person who was very invested in the reproduction and performance of black folk music was Reverend George H. Griffin. In his article, The Slave Music of the South, Griffin pursues his passion for black folk music in a different way, ignoring extensive analysis of the music before arguing that it is a “very rich mine to explore.”

 

 

 

 

Fig. 1, 2, 3. BARTON, William Eleazar. “Hymns of the slave and the freedman.” New England Magazine 19, (January 1899): 609-624. Readers’ Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed February 19, 2015).

Fig. 4, 5. Griffin, George H. 1885. THE SLAVE MUSIC OF THE SOUTH. The Musical Visitor, a Magazine of Musical Literature and Music (1883-1897). 02, http://search.proquest.com/docview/137490866?accountid=351 (accessed February 20, 2015).